urchin

English

Alternative forms

• urchon (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English yrchoun, irchoun (“hedgehog; sea urchin”), from Old Northern French irechon, from Vulgar Latin *ērīciōnem, from Latin ericius. Compare modern French hérisson, whence the English doublet herisson.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɜːtʃɪn/, /ˈɜːtʃən/
• (General American) enPR: ûrʹchĭn, IPA^(key): /ˈɝt͡ʃɪn/, /ˈɝt͡ʃən/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)tʃɪn
• Hyphenation: ur‧chin, urchin

Noun

urchin (plural urchins)

1. A mischievous child.
   • 1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 7, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC:

     And like these fresh green things were the dozens of babies, tots, toddlers, noisy urchins, laughing girls, a whole multitude of children of one family. For Collier Brandt, the father of all this numerous progeny, was a Mormon with four wives.

2. A street urchin, a child who lives, or spends most of their time, in the streets.
   • a. 1879, William Howitt, The Wind in a Frolic:

     And the urchins that stand with their thievish eyes / Forever on watch ran off each with a prize.

3. A sea urchin.
4. One of a pair in a series of small card cylinders arranged around a carding drum; so called from its fancied resemblance to the hedgehog.
   • 1836, Andrew Ure, The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain […] :

     Here we have a carding-engine, with the drum surmounted with urchin or squirrel cards […]

5. (historical) A neutron-generating device that triggered the nuclear detonation of the earliest plutonium atomic bombs.
6. (obsolete) A hedgehog.
7. (obsolete) A mischievous elf supposed sometimes to take the form of a hedgehog.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv]:

     We'll dress [them] like urchins, ouphes, and fairies.

Derived terms

• cake urchin
• heart urchin
• keyhole urchin
• nano-urchin
• sea urchin
• street urchin
• urchin barren
• urchiness
• urchin fish
• urchinly
• wheel urchin

 

Translations

mischievous child

• Azerbaijani: şuluq
• Bulgarian: палавник (bg) m (palavnik), калпазанин (bg) m (kalpazanin)
• Dutch: bengel (nl) m
• Esperanto: bubo (eo)
• French: garnement (fr) m
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: Bengel (de) m, Lümmel (de) m, Lausbube (de) m, Racker (de) m, Schlingel (de) m, Göre (de) f
• Greek: διαβολάκι (el) n (diavoláki), (obsolete) παλιόπαιδο (el) n (paliópaido)
• Hungarian: lurkó (hu), csibész (hu)
• Ido: bubo (io)
• Italian: monello (it), birichino (it), peste (it), discolo (it) m, lazzarone (it) m
• Japanese: 小汚いガキ (kogitanai gaki)
• Occitan: esparnèl m, galapian m
• Portuguese: moleque (pt) m
• Romanian: ștrengar (ro) m
• Russian: прока́зник (ru) m (prokáznik), баловни́к (ru) m (balovník), озорни́к (ru) m (ozorník)
• Serbo-Croatian: deran (sh) m
• Spanish: gamín (es) m, gamina (es) f, golfillo
• Turkish: please add this translation if you can

street urchin — see street urchin

sea urchin — see sea urchin

Further reading

• James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Urchin”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume X, Part 1 (Ti–U), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, pages 454–455.

Anagrams

• chunri, unrich